Ezra

A sawmill in Central California that has cut softwood lumber since 1967 sits on more than 300 acres of forest and mill land. When the operation changed hands recently, the buyers were not an outside conglomerate but a partnership that paired the mill’s own sales manager with two owners of a wholesale lumber trading company. […]

A 115-year-old lumberyard in the upper Midwest changed hands a few years ago, and the new owner did not walk in through the front door first. He visited the store three times before making an offer: once as a demanding customer, once as an ordinary buyer, and once with children running through the aisles. The

Fire-retardant-treated wood has one narrow job: slow the spread of fire long enough for occupants to exit and for the fire service to arrive. For decades, the materials that could do that job in wall assemblies were limited to dimension lumber and plywood treated with fire-retardant chemicals. Engineered wood products now carry the same treatment,

Every wood-framed building starts in a sawmill. Logs become boards, boards become studs and joists, and the quality of that conversion decides how straight the walls stand and how predictable the framing budget is. Lumber is the largest material category in most residential builds, so mill-level decisions reach every framing crew in the country. The

Laminated veneer lumber, usually called LVL, is the default answer for long spans and heavy point loads in wood construction. It is a factory-made beam material built from thin sheets of veneer glued together with the grain running parallel, which gives it strength and stiffness that solid lumber cannot match at the same cross section.

Particleboard shows up in nearly every home: cabinet boxes, shelving, countertop substrates, closet systems, and furniture frames. When one of the oldest particleboard mills in North America announced it would stop production, the decision said as much about panel manufacturing economics as it did about a single facility. For builders and remodelers, material budgets carry

When a manufacturer commits $400 million to a new oriented strand board plant on a 550-acre site, the decision says as much about regional timber supply as about the housing market that will consume the panels. OSB is the workhorse of modern framing: the same panels sheathe the walls, roofs, and floors of most new

Engineered wood products have changed what builders can expect from a piece of lumber. Instead of waiting for a solid timber beam in exactly the right length, crews now work with products manufactured to precise dimensions and predictable performance: I-joists, laminated veneer lumber, glulam beams, oriented strand board, and plywood. Each one is built in

Millwork is the finished wood that shapes the inside and outside of a building: window casings, door frames, baseboards, crown molding, mantels, and the custom trim pieces that give a house its character. It is a quieter part of construction than framing or roofing, but it is everywhere, and the companies that make it are